Cat Devon - The Entity Within

“I still don’t understand,” Zoe said. “What was the demon trying to accomplish?”

“To possess you in order to use your magic, turning it dark and aiming it at eliminating me,” Damon said.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Zoe wrapped her arms around her middle. “What do you mean ‘possess’? Do you mean like spirits did to Whoopi Goldberg in the movie Ghost ?”

Damon said, “They didn’t possess your entire body. The demon slithered into your mind.”

She clapped her hand on her ear. “You mean they entered through my ear and took over my brain?”

He shook his head. “Not literally speaking, no. We’re not exactly sure how they do mind possessions.”

“You’re safe now,” Gram reassured Zoe. “I should have put a protection spell over you the moment demons were mentioned, but I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Were you thinking straight when you let the demons out?” Damon said.

“All I did was open the cover of a spell book.”

Instead of answering, Damon completed his search of Zoe’s work area while Gram removed the remains of the broken light fixture with a wave of her hand.

“If the book really is lost, don’t you have a spell to return it?” he said.

“If it was lost, yes,” Gram said. “But it was taken.”

“And there’s no spell for returning stolen property? I find that hard to believe,” Damon said.

“I find this entire thing hard to believe,” Zoe said. “First I find out we’ve moved into a neighborhood full of vampires—and now we’ve got a bunch of demons thrown into the mix.”

“Thanks to your grandmother,” Damon pointed out.

“It was an accident,” Gram said. “Just like—”

Zoe cut her off. “It was an accident. Period.”

But Damon was not easily distracted. “Just like what?”

“Nothing,” Gram said.

Zoe nodded her approval of her grandmother’s answer. Unfortunately Damon caught her.

“Did you release demons in Boston, too? Is that why you were booted out?” he demanded.

“We were not booted out. We were semi-banished. That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Why is it different?”

“No, why were you banished?”

“Semi-banished,” she corrected him. “I told you earlier at the bar and grill that there was an incident with a motivational speaker.”

“That’s not enough to make your coven banish you. There had to be another reason,” Damon said.

“I never said our coven banished us,” Zoe pointed out.

“No one else would have the authority,” Damon said. “The mayor couldn’t banish you, as much as he might want to. Same for the governor.”

“They both forgave me,” Gram said.

“For what?” Damon demanded.

“Nothing.”

Zoe was getting the mother of all headaches. Probably an aftereffect of demon possession. She’d have to Google that.

She had no doubt that Damon’s ransacking her workplace had also ramped up her stress level.

Then there was her hormone level, which Damon had also knocked out of whack. There was no way she should find him the least bit attractive after his behavior. So why was she drawn to him? Had that demon messed with her mind?

“What are the aftereffects of demon mind possession?” she asked Damon.

“Most don’t survive long enough to have aftereffects,” he said.

“If that is supposed to make me feel better—”

He interrupted her. “It isn’t.” He looked around with those killer dark blue eyes of his. “Where’s your bedroom?”

Her jaw dropped. Okay, just because she’d been thinking he was sexy didn’t mean she wanted him in her bedroom.

Without waiting for her reply, he opened a door to his right. Bingo. Her bedroom. With her bed, a dresser, and nothing else.

He stepped inside and the sight of him, so dark and dangerous, beside her snowy white bed was strangely arousing. Was he trying to bring out her dark side the same way the demon had? Well, not exactly the same way, obviously, since Damon wasn’t messing with her mind. Gram’s protection spell guaranteed that.

But protection only went so far. Was Zoe really safe from a devilishly handsome vampire with a sardonic smile and bedroom eyes?

Probably not.

The witch had only been in Vamptown a few hours and already all hell had broken loose. Damon couldn’t believe it when they’d referred to a book of spells releasing demons. He’d been searching for just such a book for over 150 years.

He’d honestly started to doubt its very existence. Of course, the witches could just be scamming him. Having the book disappear was a little too convenient in his opinion.

Damon looked around Zoe’s bedroom. There was a bed, a dresser, and nothing else. “Where is the rest of your stuff?”

She pointed to the closet.

He opened the door where her clothes were neatly hanging. She apparently liked red and black, as those colors were predominant. Maybe that was a witch thing.

“You’ve unpacked a lot in the short time you’ve been here. There were no moving trucks outside the house today. Obviously you used magic.”

She glared at him with those witchy blue/green eyes of hers but said nothing.

“Or your grandmother did,” he said.

He saw the truth flash across her face. “Keep my grandmother out of this,” Zoe said.

“Hard to do when she’s unleashed a horde of demons upon us.”

“I told you. It was an—”

“Accident. Yeah, so you say. For all I know you could have put a cloaking spell on the book to make it invisible to me.”

“Why would we do that?” she said. “Why would we want a horde of demons running around?”

“I don’t know. But I will find out.”

Just for the hell of it, he tried to compel her by looking deep into her eyes and softly saying, “Tell me the truth.”

To his surprise, she did. “We did not intentionally call upon any demons. Your eyes are too sexy for words. So is your mouth.”

Zoe clasped her hand to her mouth and slammed the door shut into her mind.

So she’d allowed him momentary access to her thoughts. She’d even spoken them aloud. But now when he tried to compel her again, he was met with the blank wall he’d expected from a witch.

He moved closer. “So you think I’m sexy?”

Zoe backed up until she bumped into her bed. “That’s irrelevant.”

“Not to me.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. He could feel the warmth of her skin beneath his fingers. The sound of her heartbeat echoed in his mind. The sexy swish of her pulse compelled him to lift her hand to his mouth. He licked her wrist.

He expected her to yank her hand away and stare at him with fear. Instead she grabbed his hand and brought it to her mouth and licked his wrist.

The feelings throbbing through him were powerful and totally new. Yes, he’d wanted women before. He’d wanted their blood. He’d wanted to bury his fangs in their veins and draw sustenance. He’d wanted to bury his body in theirs and have raw sex. But he’d never felt this fiery need. Not since New Orleans.

Dropping her hand, he pulled his hand from her tempting mouth and demanded, “Why did you do that?”

“Why did you?” she countered. “I’ll tell you why. Because you wanted to intimidate me. And no way would I let you do that.”

“So you thought you’d intimidate me?” He wasn’t about to tell her that while she hadn’t accomplished that, she had incited an unexpected reaction in him. “That will never happen.”

“Never say never.” Zoe flipped her long dark hair away from her face and sauntered out of her bedroom.

Damon was only a few yards from Zoe’s house when the first demon attacked him, swooping down from the roof’s gutter. Damon swiveled with vamp super speed and noted the look of hatred in the being’s bulging red eyes before he buried his demon dagger in his assailant’s throat. Quickly yanking the dagger out, he watched as the demon dissolved in a fiery cloud of sulfuric smoke.